The Prestige

I'm sick of movies that are supposed to be this humongous mystery that I figure out halfway (or sooner) through. I don't know how easy it was for other people to figure it out (don't worry, I'm not going to give it away here), but I got it after the first 45 minutes or so.
Actually this film wasn't half bad if you don't watch it for the "mystery".
SPOILER ALERT
(don't say I didn't warn you)
The thing that I found most intriguing about this movie is what the two magicians do to be the best. One and his brother sacrifice their own personal lives in order to share one successful life as a magician and, in doing so, they lose the women they love and one loses his life. Also, one of them willingly cuts off two of his fingers to maintain the illusion. What I really find amazing is that they had to have planned this for a really long time. They were able to keep up the facade that they were one person because nobody knew that there were two of them.
Their rival magician essentially commits suicide over and over again. He uses his 'clones' in the same way that the other magicians use their canaries. The interesting part is that his clones are himself and that they willingly go through with it. In fact, it is even unclear as to whether or not the original even survived.
I lust after both Hugh Jackman and Christian Bail.

Orpheus

This film was difficult to follow in places, but it was still ok. The way that they personified death was really interesting. The woman that is death in this film is called "Orpheus' death" so several of us thought that meant that each person has their own incarnation of death. This is a little confusing to the plot line because Orpheus' death still had the power to kill and control other people.
I kind of like the idea that everyone has a personage, I guess I'd call it an angel, that is their to help them transition when they die. Death never seemed to be a scary stalk-you-in-your-sleep kind of figure to me (it obviously was to the person who wrote this script). Although if the angel of death came into my room at night to watch me sleep, that would kind of creep me out.
The movie sort of combines the myth of Orpheus with the myth of Psyche. In the original myth Orpheus just can't look at her until they get home, but in the movie he can't ever look at her. It just seems unfair that her continued life is contingent upon his actions when it was mostly his fault that she was dead in the first place.
The film is also weird in that Eurydice isn't really the one that Orpheus loves, he's in love with death. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is supposed to be this legendary love story and they completely changed that in the movie.
Also, Orpheus was a complete jerk-off in the movie.

The Price of Milk

Their are two things that I have to say before I write this reveiw:
1) New Zealanders are hot.
2) It must be hard to be crazy.
Even though the copy that we watched wasn't of the highest quality (it was taped from tv) the film was still visually incredible. Probably the most beautiful scene was when the main character, Lucinda, was running across the vibrant green countryside in a red sari that flowed at least 20 yards behind her.
The film is a fairytale, but it starts(in Paul's words) where most fairytales end-with true love. It was all about what true love is and how to keep it. I thought it was interesting that the "villain" (she isn't really a villain, but she's as close as they get) is named Drosophila, which is the name of a fly.
I'm not sure if their was actual magic in the story or if Lucinda was just crazy. She certainly was crazy, but I don't know if all of the fantastic things happen in her mind or in real life.
(spoiler)
I really like that she didn't recognize Rob when he thought that he didn't love her. She said, "You're not Rob. Rob loves me, I don't know you". It really shows how we define other people through how they treat us. We make our own villains and heros in our lives.

Willow & La Lengua de las Mariposas

I saw two really cute movies this week. The films club showed Willow and my Hispanic film class showed La Lengua de las Mariposas. I have always loved Willow, but I hadn't seen it in a long time. That mades it all the better because it was like meeting a good friend that I hadn't seen since grade school. I'm really disappointed in Sorsha though. She was, by and large, a useless character. She was also the typical swoony woman, despite her being in armor 95% of the time. Madmartigen (sp?) proclaims his love for her and she immediately falls into his arms...I think that is slightly pathetic.
Paul told me that at one point in the production they were going to have the fairies be evil. I'm so glad they didn't go in that direction, it would have made no sense and there would have been too many villains.
The brownies are my favorite characters. :)
La Lengua de las Mariposas was a delightful surprise. It's about a little boy and his relationship with his teacher, set in 1936 Spain. Like all of the movies in that class it was political, but that was more a backround to the boy's life. The final lesson of the movie (w/o giving away the plot) is that it really screws kids up when adults do hateful things and force them to do those things as well. I recommend this film to everyone. There is some brief nudity, but nothing really major.

Kung Fu Hustle

This movie is one of the funniest that I've seen in a long time. There were some excessively violent scenes in this movie, but then it is a Kung Fu movie. One of the best things about this movie is that the "kung fu masters" work as just regular people. It's pretty obvious what most of the plot is for the movie, but there are some cool surprises here and there (not wanting to give anything away). I also like how they mock the kung fu culture while still paying homage to it. They also pay homage to a lot of different movies in the film (The Shining, Spiderman, and more that i can't remember). It was just an altogether light-hearted comedy.

Le Procès

"The Trial" is based on a Kafka novel.....do I really need to go on from there? You start out not knowing what the heck is going on and that is pretty much where you remain for the rest of the movie. The best that I can say about that is that at least you aren't alone. The protagonist, Mr Joseph K, doesn't know what is going on either.
One of the weird things about the movie is that sometimes the lips don't match up with the sound, sometimes they do. But, it doesn't feel like it's just a technical error. Paul asserts that there are two different languages being spoken and they dub the non-english one. However, I don't know, it feels more like some sort of weird stylistic thing to me.
The film also left us all with a craving for cake.